The view of the Olympics as I come over the 85th street off-ramp to I-5 is amazing. Like black construction paper torn and pasted against a sky colored easel. When the days are shorter, the mountains are a deep gray against the steel blue of the autumn sky, pale shadows where the snow lays deep.
This is my favorite view and it is so brief, just the time it takes to come out of the little tunnel that leads to the off-ramp, up the slight rise and turn to the south, and there is nothing of the city to interrupt the sight of the mountains, the sky and the slice of Green Lake that is a surprise slick of water as it gleams in the light of the day.
It's a little longer drive to get home but worth every minute.
D. and I went to Port Townsend for our weekend, a little vacation, and stayed in a really old hotel with 12 foot ceilings and a bathroom that had a toilet you had to step up to use. All the doors were shaved at slants to be able to close. We ate and walked and watched the sound and wondered what was going on with the Navy ship across the way. We had dinner in a restaurant called Sirens and sat in the window, too cold and windy to be out on the deck, and drank Port Townsend IPA and ate handmade food, and read while the sun went down.
Dennis is reading Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes, and he really likes it. Simply, it is a novel about the Viet Nam war. I am sure there is a lot more to it, but I haven't read it yet. People I know and respect who have read it say it may well be one of the best books written about the war yet. The author is coming to our store in May, so I hope I can finish it by then. (Buy a copy of Matterhorn at Third Place Books and we will donate $5 to our local disabled veteran's center.)
I was reading Cory Doctorow's new book, For the Win, and sat leaning closer and closer to the window as the light waned trying to keep reading. I love reading in restaurants and bars, a beer and a book, surrounded by people, being a part of everything while being slightly apart from it all.For the Win is a really good book! His website says it best, a short and sweet definition: For the Win is a young adult novel about macroeconomics, video games and the labor movement.
It is also a fast-paced adventure story filled with great characters and glimpses into the way people around the world really live.
I am not a gamer, I haven't played a computer game since the first incarnation of Myst and then I don't think I really played, mostly clicked and rolled over things. I think I may have to pull a little time out of the day (I had a picture in my head of a hernia when I typed that, a bulge of something that shouldn't be where it is) to give a game a try after reading this book.
I absolutely, even without knowing anything about games or the world of it, even not knowing the language, could not put this book down. In For the Win, mostly very poor children from all over the world play video games to make their bosses very rich. When it comes time to pay, feed, or care for the workers, the bosses often fire them or close the games down, leaving them without anything. When Big Sister Nor comes to these millions of people who are only known by log in names and whispers to them about forming an organization where they can help themselves to have a better life, the virtual world begins to crash headlong into the flesh one.
Ooh, it was SO good! I have three people lined up to borrow my copy of the book and I am really looking forward to giving it to all the people in my family.
Judy (from work) and I and some of the ReaderGirlz and Nancy Pearl and two librarians had dinner with Cory Doctorow last week (I know, we were so lucky to be a part of this very small group) and got our advanced reading copies signed while we inhaled our meals. I started it that night and really wanted to stay up all night to finish - not something I can do much any more! I can't wait for it to come out (May 11!) so you all can read it, too.
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